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Yesterday we heard the news that Demon's Souls' spiritual successor Project Dark is actually titled Dark Souls and will be released in late 2011. Today, we have our first trailer and previewsgoing up. So, that means it's catchall time.

From the few previews that are out there it sounds like they're basically making Demon's Souls 2 in terms of difficulty and I for one applaud that they aren't aiming for a more mainstream-palatable difficulty level. And the fact that the game is much more of an open world than the hub-style of DS, well, this might just be my perfect game in the making.

NSMike wrote:

How did I live before digital distribution of old, cheap games?

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

You did live before digital distribution of old, cheap games. Now you just play games.

I do a lot of soul farming. After I finish an area I always drop my sign and play co-op. It makes farming a lot more fun. It also makes the game less daunting, because by the time your returns start diminishing, you know you are well prepared for the next area and ramp-up in difficulty.

Getting invaded by a blue phantom in Anor Londo while struggling with the two giant knights before S&O pissed me of to no end. I had Solaire with me to go into the boss encounter, but he just strolled up to me with his grass crest shield and his stupid lightning katana and sliced my poor sorceress up like butter.
All those humanity and the souls I had lost in the boss room. :c

I'd love to know why he was a blue phantom. I never invaded someone aside from the black eye orb invasion right there in the same room. :/

Remember: If you feel yourself getting mad, go ahead! If someone's doing something to irritate you, tell them about it in detail! And hike.... whenever you feel like it!

You're sure you never invaded anybody? Like Dave said, the only way a blue phantom will invade is if you've been indicted. You don't need to have invaded someone via a Red Eye Orb either, could have been the Forest Covenant, Black Eye Orb (Gravelord Covenant), or a lot of other ways.

But yeah, as Dark Souls built off of its predecessor by having one big map (mostly), I want to see the evolution from here.

I still need to play the DLC, and then see how much pre-NG+ stuff I can stomach doing before wrapping it up. I'd like to, but I don't have much intention of playing a NG+. Just hate to skip it and later decide to go for NG+, cheevos, etc.

Can anyone suggest a good guide or forum for Character builds in Dark Souls? Most of the builds on the official wiki read like bad fan fiction.

I'm at Sens Fortress (hate) at the moment with my thief build but it seems like the best way to optimise your build is to know what gear/weapon your going to be using and I'm haven't a clue about these things and it feels like I'm doing something wrong

I've gotten quite far with a +9 thieves dagger and two handed Drake sword for bosses & larger enemies but I don't know if this will stand to me for the rest of the game.

If you haven't yet, grab the lightning spear in Sen's.
That and the heater shield helped my thief character long enough to get through a good portion of the game.
I cannot remember off the top of my head if you can upgrade the lightning spear right away with the smith, but if you can do this first.
Upgrading weapons and other gear comes always first to me before I invest more into stats, aside from a point of endurance or vitality here and there.

Also, don't be afraid to restart with a new character if you feel you planned your character wrong. The next run will be way faster since you know the places of good stuff and how to handle the enemy.

Remember: If you feel yourself getting mad, go ahead! If someone's doing something to irritate you, tell them about it in detail! And hike.... whenever you feel like it!

Can anyone suggest a good guide or forum for Character builds in Dark Souls? Most of the builds on the official wiki read like bad fan fiction.

I'm at Sens Fortress (hate) at the moment with my thief build but it seems like the best way to optimise your build is to know what gear/weapon your going to be using and I'm haven't a clue about these things and it feels like I'm doing something wrong

I've gotten quite far with a +9 thieves dagger and two handed Drake sword for bosses & larger enemies but I don't know if this will stand to me for the rest of the game.

Add and upgraded Longbow to your gear and grab a ton of standard arrows, plus as many poison arrows as you can. That should help a high Dexterity build.

It is a basic non-holy Knight build that focuses on protection, blocking, and survivability. All the gear is obtainable and can be ascended to high levels before hitting Sen's Fortress, although some Wiki help might be needed, depending how well you know the areas before Sen's Fortress. Your damage output will be unimpressive early one, but once you upgrade and ascend your weapons, and start putting points into Dexterity, you will get much better results.

The strategy for fights is to take the first hit, then, when their stance is open, hit hem with a couple of quick hits. Some people go with Strength over Dexterity, but Dexterity will increase the power of both the Longsword and the Longbow. You need the longbow for ranged attacks. Having Combustion is also good compliment to the up close melee style, since it has such a short range. Plus, Combustion is cheap, powerful, and you get 16 charges. There is a way to get two copies of the spell before Sen's to get 32 charges, but you will need to spend points on another Attunement slot.

You will have to engage in jolly cooperation to get the souls you need. I would drop your sign several times after each boss fight and focus on upgrades first, then leveling. The Undead Parish is where you farm Tantanite Shards and the bonfire in the Depths is where you can farm Large and Green Tantanite Shards. Drop your sign, go farm, and wait to be summoned.

Only use Humanity to reverse Hollowing and for Kindling. Keep as much as you can in inventory. Your Humanity level will get high through co-op alone. Always stay human. It is required for summoning helpful phantoms.

It is a basic non-holy Knight build that focuses on protection, blocking, and survivability. All the gear is obtainable and can be ascended to high levels before hitting Sen's Fortress, although some Wiki help might be needed, depending how well you know the areas before Sen's Fortress. Your damage output will be unimpressive early one, but once you upgrade and ascend your weapons, and start putting points into Dexterity, you will get much better results.

The strategy for fights is to take the first hit, then, when their stance is open, hit hem with a couple of quick hits. Some people go with Strength over Dexterity, but Dexterity will increase the power of both the Longsword and the Longbow. You need the longbow for ranged attacks. Having Combustion is also good compliment to the up close melee style, since it has such a short range. Plus, Combustion is cheap, powerful, and you get 16 charges. There is a way to get two copies of the spell before Sen's to get 32 charges, but you will need to spend points on another Attunement slot.

You will have to engage in jolly cooperation to get the souls you need. I would drop your sign several times after each boss fight and focus on upgrades first, then leveling. The Undead Parish is where you farm Tantanite Shards and the bonfire in the Depths is where you can farm Large and Green Tantanite Shards. Drop your sign, go farm, and wait to be summoned.

Only use Humanity to reverse Hollowing and for Kindling. Keep as much as you can in inventory. Your Humanity level will get high through co-op alone. Always stay human. It is required for summoning helpful phantoms.

Yeah I went ahead and re-rolled and having a high stability/heavy armour seems like a good way to. I actually don't have Live so sadly there isn't much of a chance for co-op but hey, why go easy on myself? (I still use the NPC summons there available)

Also Elite Knight Armour - thats in Darkroot basin right? I should be able to pick up that fairly easily. Is there a place pre-Sen's that I can farm Twinkling Titanite shards? I know I can get Large shards at the bottom of Blighttown but a place to farm twinkling would be nice.

If you haven't yet, grab the lightning spear in Sen's.
That and the heater shield helped my thief character long enough to get through a good portion of the game.
I cannot remember off the top of my head if you can upgrade the lightning spear right away with the smith, but if you can do this first.
Upgrading weapons and other gear comes always first to me before I invest more into stats, aside from a point of endurance or vitality here and there.

Also, don't be afraid to restart with a new character if you feel you planned your character wrong. The next run will be way faster since you know the places of good stuff and how to handle the enemy. :)

You mean hitting the mimic with that grey talisman? Yeah I saw that on a lets play (which I'd reccommend:)

The Elite Knight Armor is in the Darkroot Garden (not the area past the seal). You can basically walk to it, pick it up, and then run like hell to escape. The Wolf Ring is also easy to get to, although you do have to fight one Stone Knight. You then grab the ring and use a Homeward Bone. There are videos you can watch for both I bet.

Large Titanite can be farmed from the Slimes in the Depths. You can buy more from the Merchant at the top of Sen's.

Twinkling Titanite: Barrels before Taurus Demon (lizard), Darkroot Basin path (lizard), Undead Asylum Revisited (trade moss clumps with Hawk-Girl; can only do one of each type, one at a time, and only once-cannot use to farm unlimited). You will be able to buy more later (Anor Londo). The gear I listed just uses regular titanite, although, the Fang Boar Helm (if it drops) has great Poise and Physical Defense; it upgrades with twinkling.

Since you do not have online functionality, it will be hard to farm souls. I am at a loss on how to ramp your character up quickly without co-op. It complicates getting the Ring of Fog too, I think.

I can see why you guys generally didn't reccommend grinding - I'm in Annor Londo and those Silver Knights are really generous. I also got to try out co-op for the first time and man it makes gaining souls/humanity a lot easier - its also nice to help out other gamers since with some bosses you can be at a real type disadvantage depending on your class.

I'm currently grinding at my own leisure before the boss which I'd like to solo (beaten them a few time in co-op). Trying to get my Lightning defence up since the second incarnation seems to deal quite a bit of it.

The thing is, the benefits from levelling stats is typically so marginal that it is almost completely overwhelmed by being more skillful. The few times I did any grinding was when I needed the odd stat point in order to wield something.

I like to imagine that the first message sent across the internet in 1969 was "LOL your ping time sucks"

Playing co-op for boss fights feels so much like MMO raiding, in a really good way.

Being a console player the only MMO games I've ever played before were Phantasy Star Online & Universe though I enjoyed them quite a bit. Been put off MMO's since haven't been seriously employed up until recently though I might have to start reconsidering them.

Had a good time helping out another person last night, I could tell from their gear that they went very heavy strength (stone shield & Dark knight sword in one hand or some such) so I knew without endurance they'd have had a really tough time taking on Ornstein & Smough alone. Took a few goes though we got it in the end

DanB wrote:

The thing is, the benefits from levelling stats is typically so marginal that it is almost completely overwhelmed by being more skillful. The few times I did any grinding was when I needed the odd stat point in order to wield something.

This is very true, though for me and I'm sure a lot of gamers I had a tough time stomaching being bad at the game for a long time in the beginning ('gamers pride' I guess). Also learning to just run past enemies helps a lot too.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

You can over-level your potential co-op partners, too.

I only really realised this too late last night, though there still seem quite a few around my level (48) so it wasn't all bad.

The main thing I've learned when it comes to the Souls games is that you need to fight on your own terms as much as possible. The only section I can think of in the entire game where you can't turn things to your own advantage is the Silver Knight Archers in Anor Londo that hang out on those thin ledges. It is pretty much only that spot where you are forced to fight in a position that completely favors the enemy.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Buy! Buy so you can be an ostrich who kills dinosaurs by kicking them in the face!